Chapter 44: Hesitation and Choice

Chapter 44: Hesitation and Choice
He continued, sharing the intelligence he had gathered from others.

"Not through him directly, but through those so-called 'followers' of his. He claims to be divinely chosen. He says he has seen the gods. He frequently holds preaching sessions in the Western District plaza, proclaiming that the words he speaks are divine will, and that those who hear him will receive divine favor." As he spoke, a mocking smile curved at the corner of his mouth. "He sounds like nothing more than a complete fraud."

"He does sound that way," I said, "but he's important. Because that prophecy—he was the one who spread it from Aethon twenty years ago."

"Then who was the 'masked figure' who found him twenty years ago?"

"I don't know," I said. "Only the Grand Prophet himself knows."

I closed my notebook, the leather cover producing a dull thud.

"I also want to ask you." I lifted my head, looking directly at him in the shadows. "Your journey here."

He paused at that question, as if weighing something.

"My affairs can wait," he said. "But first, let's address what worries you most."

"What?"

"Aldenmere."

I felt the heart that had been suspended in my chest drop heavily at the sound of that name.

I forced myself to take a deep breath, trying to suppress the suffocating sensation. From the moment I left the court until now, not a single day had passed without thinking about Aldenmere's situation. Mother. Father. The entire palace's circumstances. I knew Rendell must have discovered something to chase after me. I knew he could tell me things I had no way of knowing myself—news about the past I had abandoned.

I made myself ask first the heaviest part of that question, my voice somewhat hoarse.

"My mother."

"Still alive." He said it with certainty in his tone. "Her condition is stable."

I let those two words echo in my mind, as if they were some form of salvation.

"Stable. Stable is good."

"Dr. Aldren's report this time was genuine," he said. "I've visited her twice. She's no longer coughing. Her appetite is slightly better than when you left."

"How did they manage it?"

"They did nothing," he said, his fingers tapping lightly on the armrest. "She stabilized on her own. From the day you left, it was as if she became a different person—her condition suddenly stabilized."

I felt a weight lift from my shoulders, though simultaneously an uncomfortable feeling settled in my heart. I let that fact slowly descend into the empty space in my chest that had been filled with guilt and fear, now replaced by a bittersweet warmth.

When I left my mother's side, that had been the heaviest stone in my heart. Throughout this journey, it had been pressing down on me from some corner of my being. Every time I thought of her, I worried whether her condition would worsen, whether she would die in despair.

But she had stabilized.

After I left, she had actually stabilized.

It was probably because the curse's effect had left her, preventing her illness from worsening further.

If not returning to her side was the condition for her stability, I thought I could barely bear it.

"She knows I left."

"She found out a few days later. Father told her himself."

"Did she say anything?"

"She said one thing," he said, his gaze becoming somewhat distant. "She said, 'That child has finally left.'"

I made myself look at him, my pupils contracting slightly.

That child has finally left.

He didn't answer immediately, only looked at me quietly.

"I don't know what she meant by that either," he said, his voice softening slightly. "But when she said it, she was smiling."

I felt my knees weaken, and I involuntarily sat down on the edge of the bed.

"She anticipated it."

My mother knew things I didn't know. She might have known from the very beginning. She knew when I first snuck out of the palace. She knew when I secretly leafed through that thick forbidden pharmacopoeia. She let me do those things, let me search for those items, let me collect all those details in my notebook. She knew from the start that I would eventually leave—it was an escape she tacitly permitted.

She smiled the day I left. It wasn't the grief of a mother losing her child, but a kind of relief.

"My father."

I spoke again, my voice trembling slightly.

"His Majesty Edran sent me to follow," Rendell said, a trace of imperceptible complexity in his tone. "The day after you left, he summoned me to his study. He said one thing: 'Let her go. What she seeks is something she needs to find. This matter—only she can undertake it.'"

"After he said that, I left the study," Rendell continued, his fingers curling slightly. "I spent about a month continuing to investigate the source of the curse. I found much information, with clues pointing north. When I went to see His Majesty Edran again, he gave me a sum of money and told me to follow my own judgment in pursuing the matter. I followed the traces of activity the dark sorcerer left along this route, all the way to Aethon."

I made myself look at him, enormous waves surging in my heart.

My father had sent him.

My father had been orchestrating certain events from behind the scenes all along.

He let me leave, then sent Rendell after me.

"The herbs." Rendell suddenly shifted the topic, though I knew this was still crucial.

I glanced at him.

"What?"

"Your mother," he said, leaning forward slightly, his gaze sharpening. "Those herbs you were giving her before. I noticed that her most stable period was during the month before you left. What formula were you preparing for her every day during that month?"

"That month I used a dual-base formula of Silverthread and Moonpetal. Plus a bit of Bittersorrel to neutralize the toxicity."

"After you left, we tried to continue that formula," he said, his brow furrowing slightly. "But our supply of Silverthread ran out. We couldn't find a substitute in the palace apothecary, and the merchant caravans had no stock either."

"Silverthread." I murmured, a certain image flashing through my mind. "I later found a batch in the black market of Elarin's lower district. But because the curse's effect hadn't been suppressed at that time, they had all spoiled—I couldn't bring them out."

I made myself look at the flickering oil lamp before me, the flame's movement as unsettled as my heartbeat.

I had now walked to a place even I didn't know.

"I miss her," I said, my voice somewhat choked.

As I said this, I deliberately avoided looking at Rendell's face, afraid of seeing accusation or pity there.

"She's stabilized," he said, his tone firm. "I'll bring some Silverthread back from here. She's waiting for you to return."

"Really? Won't she..."

"She's waiting for you to return," he repeated, each word like a nail driven into my heart. "She believes you'll find the answer and then come back."

I let myself linger on that image for a moment, imagining my mother in her room, smiling as she spoke those words.

I reopened my notebook, my fingers smoothing out the creases in the paper.

"The Grand Prophet," I said, trying to regain control of the conversation. "We must find him."

"Tomorrow," he said, rising to his feet, his cloak's hem swaying slightly. "It's too late tonight, and the guards are still searching. We need to rest."